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Monday, January 28, 2013

There comes a time in every food bloggers life where one must take the trip to a culinary Mecca: the prestigious Michelin star restaurant. Surprisingly, I find that a lot of you numb nuts' out there actually don't even know what the Michelin Star rating system is! Well let me bring you up to speed:

In 1900, one of the Frenchies who co-owned the Michelin Tyre(aka "tire") Company started publishing guides for good hotels and restaurants in France to let the rich dick-heads know where exactly they should be eating and sleeping if they were to travel the country with their new found motorized dick-head vessels. By 1920, the dining section of the guide became so popular(with what i'm gonna call "walkies"), that they started publishing guides for just restaurants based around a three star rating system(The *gasp* Michelin Star). The inspectors would visit the restaurants anonymously, payed for by Michelin, and would award one star for "very good cuisine in its category", "really moistens my boy pussy", two stars for "excellent cuisine, worth a detour", "is that my boy pussy, or an infinity pool?", and the rare three stars for "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey" "drop me off at the Idaho wild fires, me and my boy pussy got this". It's essentially done the same way today, but now the guides include restaurants in cities and countries all over the world.

New York has 66 Michelin star restaurants, with only seven rated at two stars, and seven at three stars. It was really tough searching out what crazy expensive ass nice place I was going to go to, but after viewing "A Matter of Taste - Serving up Paul Leibrandt", I knew two star Michelin, Corton, was where I was gonna go be a real dick hole.

Our menu:

So I can't really read that menu from here either, but the basic gist with a restaurant of two star Michlein caliber or higher is that you just have the option of the chef's tasting menu, meaning you can't choose what you want cuz this motherfucker knows what's best for you; Unless of course you're allergic to shit like shell fish, peanuts, dairy, or the ever illusive fake white person allergy: gluten. A concern not of mine nor my date, so it was time to get mouth pregnant.

First up: canapés!

So the canape course is actually the first of three "unofficial" courses served in a traditional fuck-face meal. Back in the Downton Abbey days, the canapes were served in a seperate room from the dinning area, which would evolve into the veritable "cock-tail hour" of later days. It encouraged the bro-ing down of dudes and chicks who probly hated each other but let the therapy of drink ease the pain. The traditional canape being salty and/or spicy also led said dude or chick to have another drink... cuz seriously, fuck that asshole, give me another drink.

On the top left, we have the sweet potato doughnut with caviar eyes and candied grape-fruit eye brows over rock salt, a la, uhmm... ninja turtle. To the right of that we have a puff pastry with leaf of arbitrary filled with mornay sauce(mornay sauce is fancy speak for awesome cheese sauce). The stoner in me just wanted to tell Le Brandt to give me a bag of these for $20 and dip out cuz that's the kind of sin that puts the "eat" in "death". Finally, on the bottom, we have oyster stew that was frozen, melon balled, crispy crusted, and deep fried. *ahem* say WHAAAAAAT!?!? garnished with spicy cracker and served over black sand.

So on to "unofficial" course number two: the amuse bouche!

Amuse bouche literally translates to "mouth amuser"(LOLLOL!@!@##3). Traditionally, it's a bite of shit the chef gives you when you sit down at the table to prepare your mouth piece for the rest of the meal that's to come(LOLLOL!@!!##33). I've never really experienced this in such a way as an actual portal into a chef's meal, but have received it more as of a, "here you go you poor bastard, have a free bite of shit". I used to be in charge of this course at a restaurant I worked at and would make fancy mini big-macs and old crostinis with blackberry cream cheese. BUT! At Corton, we had this:

Well well well, if isn't black kombu gelee with totally obscure mushroom soup bite. You mother fuckers had me at jelly. The funniest part about this amuse is that my lady and I thought that this utensil was meant for the complimentary bread and compound chestnut butter:

Fuck! Why don't you just bring me the squirrel spoon with that shit instead of making me feel like an asshole!? Btw, all the food runners actually had thick Uzpakistanian accents, so we actually had no idea what any of them were saying when they put shit on our table.

On to course number one, dudes:

Royal of Santa Barbara Uni

Seasoned with Nutmeg Oil, Ossetra Caviar, Black Kombu Gelee

"Sea Urchin from that place with the good hookers with nutmeg oil, eggs from baby Beluga(remember that Raffi jam??), and jello made from sea weed"

So yes, sea urchin. Apparently that shit tastes retarded if you mix it with a bunch of butter and pasta, according to Eric Reppert. The eggs, however, aren't actually from the beluga whale, but from the pre-historic beluga sturgeon! all proper caviar comes from sturgeon, much like real champagne comes from Champagne, and if you pay thousands of dollars($7,000-$10,00 per kilogram for Ossertra Caviar) for the real thing, then you I might have to point out to you that there's a giant cock in your ass fucking you against your will. caviar's pretty damn over rated if you ask me, as is Cristal and Dom. I'll take a damn chicken egg any day of the week over dinosaur fish egg.

Course Two:

[Unpictured]

Spirit of the Sweet PotatoSweet potato gnocchi, pumpkin seeds, serrano ham consomme
So this one isn't pictured because apparently since it was the "spirit of the sweet potato", i done and slam sniffed it without even realizing it. One gnocchi!?!? fuck you, dude! but, goddamn, it was one a fuck of a sniff. Gnocchi is the new easy-mac to a lot of people these days, so i guess i should clue you in to what consomme is: complex garbildy gook which purifies the gnar gnar from the gnar gnar, to make a clear gnarless gnar. And I'll also tell you what it's not: wolf piss. True story.

Course Three:

Kalamansi Mandarin Mochi

Fresh sudachi

So this was a course that they wouldn't even give us a damn squirrel spoon to eat with: little sour ice cream balls. Mochi is a Japenese thingy where they pound out some rice into a sticky paste. Chef Lebrandt made some ice cream balls out of tiny Filippino oranges and tiny Japanese limes and wrapped those slams with the mochi and said, "that's right assholes, you're spending over a month's rent on this dinner and I just gave you fucking ice cream balls."

"Retardedly named fish, served under a tiny fort with thing that looks like poached egg and smoodge of what looks like someone missed the bowl hovering over the toilet to diarrhea. "

This was one my favorite courses, actually. John Dory is a wild ass looking coastal fish that kind of tastes like a less fishier cod, and even wikipedia doesn't really seem to know whhy it's named John Dory. I don't know what the fuck any of that other shit is. The non-culinary meaning of the word mousseline is "crisp fabric", so I'm guessing Lebrandt's pulling a fast one and those two crispy looking things are the mousseline. The creamy veloute (aka diarrhea smudge) was DOPE. But I don't why that dude's living so far away!

"First, we're gonna get a beef wang and present it to you over a bunch of sticks, then we're gonna take the beef wang and chop it up into little beef wang segments and give you a little beef wang segment served with a dark puddle. After that, we're gonna put half a nibble of raw beef in a giant martini glass and then go blow our brains out."

I think maybe Pauly might have trust issues. Dude, if you tell me you're cooking the damn beef over a bunch of birch sticks, than I totally believe you, dawg! You ain't gotta show me that shit first! Yum town for sure, though. And as you can all see, the tartare paired wonderfully with titty of girlfriend.

Course Six:

Salers

It's a fucking cheese plate

Course Seven:

Maple

Smoked maple creme, sour cherry puree

coffee sponge cake, almond, toast ice cream

"Candy bar topped with cake crumbs and ice cream shaped like an old person's butt".

Course Eight:

Fig

Cremeux of Mast Brothers Moho River choclate

Black Mission fige ice cream, tarragon gelee

"Turd log served with a squiggle line on top of green jelly and... why the fuck not... GOLD. Cuz here at Corton, the real winners are the customers".

The customers who pay

for fucking dinner! Congratulations!!!

Well that was just good old fashion fun right there! Would you excuse me for a second? I have to find the nearest subway train to jump in front of.

Corton is located on 239 West Broadway, New York, NY, about 415 miles away from Bodo's Bagels, where I'll be eating for the next lifetime or two.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Ah, yes, it is once again spring time and the North American blog bear awakens from his hibernation to resume(/continue) a life of slam piggery, recklessness, and most importantly, the documenting of all things in the realm of fat fuckery. Sorry it's been so long, dudes!

For the past many years, I've only really visited NY only because of show related shit. So I figured for Irish Xmas/27th birthday weekend I would return to the land of dilck and honies to straight up focus on rolling with the homies, getting fuzzy, and eating so much food that I need stick my finger down my butthole's throat just so I can eat more. Needless to say, I accomplised the dogshit out my mission.

My partner in crime, and also spirit animal and guru for this trip was my roomie, Shane MacO'gallgher'OMcIrishdittyCatholicpotatoredbranchwaragher.

He's Irish as FUCK. He even says shit like "lad", and told me I couldn't buy Bushmill's Irish whiskey because they gang rape Protestants or some shit. So anyway, he wanted to show me a traditional Irish St. Patrick's Day celebration in the big city, and me being the epitome of consumption and cultural knowledge, obliged whith the tip 'oh mheee fat hass. HOYDEE TOYDEE HEIDDEY OYDEE officer Krupkee!

Me: So Shane, how does one go about traditionally celebrating St. Patrick's Day?

Shane: Well, lad(that's me), St. Patrick's Day celebrates the dude who brought Christianity to Ireland. He like, was from Rome or some shit, and went to Ireland one day and everyone was all orgying out and worshipping flowers and stuff and he was all like, "GET FUCKED UP AND WORSHIP CHRIST!" And they thought that was tight, so every March 17th we get slam dicked and squinty eyed.

Me: No shit!! That's the business!

So upon our arrival to Bedstuy, Brooklyn, New York, at 3pm, we cracked open IPA's and swigged a bunch of Powers Irish Whiskey, the most popular whiskey sold in Ireland. Dude's whiskey was(and still is) so bawler that he got knighted and was made High Sheriff of Dublin, which I believe is the equivalent of the main dude from Downton Abbey. Pretty sure he got some puss.

Our pre pre pre pre game was at a bar in the lower east side(LES), where they had $3 shot and beer specials and an unusual amount of black dudes decked out in green kilts. I swear our generation is either trying it's damnedest to find excuses to get dressed up and blacked out, or maybe all of the O'neals' from the Congo could've had a good ol' fashioned diaspora to Ireland.

Well since part of the ancient Irish tradition is to get squinty eyed, we clearly had to get our slant on with some cheap ass Chinese food! Enter: Vanessa's

Vanessa's Dumpling House is a famous cheap-as-hell joint in China Town that always has a line out the door with confused novice touristy patrons such as myself trying to figure out how the fuck to actually order some damn food. The place is jammed with very limited tables seated by the "ugh...really? you dont know??" people watchers and a slew of sweaty Asians yelling at each other behind the counter. They're probly saying: "Hey Bobby! Three porks, two ducks, and seven soup specials! Linda! We need 200 porks!"

But it sounds like: "Way to let your family down you low life fuck! How bout I deep fry your grandmother's leg and eat it in front of your kids? Linda! Come watch me fuck this bag with a ladle!"

*Sigh* Language barriers...

Alright, so I ordered the pork and scallion dumplings(four for $1) and the duck cucumber pancake($2.50). Everyone else pretty much followed suit, and twenty minutes later the nice old ladies bagged our shit up and we went to the park to watch dudes kick a ball around. And since we were this Irish drunk in the early afternoon, we were all pretty compelled to...

Notice how J. Wolf(second from right) tries to cup the jizz with his hands! DUDE! That's like putting your thumb over the water hose!!! it's gonna get everywhere!! Extra points to A.Smith for splattering against the camera phone frame, and for the ladies who managed to keep the sploosh home court.
.

And the $1 dumplings!? Pfff... If I wanted to taste Asian fingers for eight hours I would... uhmm... eat your awesome dumplings for six hours and then... uhmm.... probly eat your dumplings again for another two hours. fuck you.

Vanessa's Dumpling House is located at 118 Eldridge St. in the LES at China Town. kiiiiinda near where i smoked a bubbler of some chron with some new jersey chick who was with another couple who seemed to be getting all craigslist casual encounter on us, but i declined cuz that shit intimidated me.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Awwwww, here go! I don't know if you jack holes have heard all the rumors floating around regarding me and sandwiches, but let me go ahead and set the record straight for you all: THEY ARE THE SLAM TO MY JAM. I swearz, I eat a god damn sandwich at least once a day, and ever since my parents successfully prayed the gay gene(vegetarianism) out of me, I sometimes even eat, I dunno, like, two a day. Like a fucking lunatic.

So one day, my buddy Justin says to me, "Duuude. Next time you're in Philly, I'm gonna take you to a place that makes the BEST fucking sandwich you will ever eat. Like, seriously -- ball draining good.".

"Ball draining!?" I exclaimed emphatically. "Well that just doesn't even sound physically possible, Justin. You aren't confusing sandwiches with hookers again, are you? Cuz last time you told me I was gonna have a ball draining 'Niçoise salad', it cost me seventy-five dollars and a questionable blemish on my d-piece."

"Naw, yo, I'm for ril-doze. Straight up sandwich style."

So it was off to the Italian Market in South Philly, to a charming little butt-jam factory called Paesano's:

So this is a fairly famous joint known for miraculously offering super gourmet style shit for poor person prices. Seriously, it's hard to find menus that say shit such as "broccoli rabe" and "roasted fennel" with prices under $10. That ass clown Bobby Flay even had his stupid ass Throw Down show here!

So according to the website, the owner was "tired of having to add 'gusto' to other sandwich shop offerings", which kind of but not really explains why there's wild shit such as crispy fried lasagna and sopressata wrapped hot dog sandwiches. The website should really say the owner was "tired of having to add heart murmers to his hoagies after getting broiled(did I just come up with that, or is that something people already say to get super stoned?)."

So I decided to have the flag-ship sandwich, "The Paesano", which more or less means "red neck" in Italian. So what do these nut jobs put on this slam jam?

House made beef brisket. Horseradish mayo. Roasted tomatoes. Pepperincino. Sharp provolone. Fried egg. ALL OF WHICH ARE AMERICAN DREAMS! ALL OF WHICH ARE AMERICAN DREAMS! ALL OF WHICH! ARE AMERICAN! DREAMS.

Did you know that the brisket is the part of the cow that's above the front shank and under the chuck? Neither did I, until I just wikipedia'd that shit! And why the fuck is the tenderloin, the most expensive cut of meat, so close to the butt hole!?!?

So. The big question: Was it the best sandwich I've ever had? *Whew* well, it was a CLOSE second. And I'm talking pretty damn close. The brisket was juicy and delicious, the bread was the perfect amount of crunchy, and all of the toppings were completely spot on. It's definitely the kind of sandwich you eat once, and find yourself having special cravings for for the rest of your life. But I'm sorry, the first place position is still firmly held by the "bewpie" sandwich, which is a sandwich of my face buried in between a pair of awesome bewpies. Valiant effort, Paesano's.

I leave you know with an exchange that took place in the Hand van a couple of hours after our experience, that should firmly convince you of the caliber of excellence to which these sandwiches hold:

Me: "Ohhhh myyaaaan, I want to poooop so byaaaad, but I cyaaaant. WHY CYANT I POOOP!?!?"

B-Rock: "I knyooowww *whimper*. It's like the syaandwich was so gyoood that you're styomach doesn't want to turn into poop because it was soooo gyoood and it wants to keep it in sandwich form foreeevoorrrr."

Paesano's is located at 1017 S 9th Street at the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, a few blocks and about 4 or 5 years from where I got in a huge fight with the girl I was dating at the time, and ended up having drunk make up sex on a shitty south philly couch, and falling asleep in a bewpie sandwich. Bewpies.

Monday, June 20, 2011

So it was about time The Hand made another trip up north to one of our favorite stomping grounds, Brooklyn. We started off Friday night in Philly to play at Danger and Danger and bro-down with our ambassador of Perpetual Light, Mr. Justin Wolf. We've started making a tradition of ending the night at his pad and getting stoned and watching shitty shit on Netflix such as "The Haunting in Connecticut" and "The Crazies". This time around, we decided to go the more educational route with a little gem of a show called "1000 Ways to Die". Did you know that if you go to sleep dreaming of a little red demon dwarf choking you to death and you actually die, you're like, soul dies too? FUCK! We also watched "I'm Still Here", a movie about inexplicable penis scenes.

So the next morning, it was off too Brooklyn, the place where my parents bumped uglies(super gross, barfy, parent uglies) and birthed my irreverant ass. And if you recall from the last time I blogged about Brooklyn, you learned that I like to participate in the local tradition of the "Slamming of the Pigs". This time around, endurance was in my favor and instead of locking myself in a karaoke bar bathroom and passing out time, it was............

I didn't really know how to write out the motor-boating noise, but I think you turds got it. I was actually gonna try and be tame that night, too, but once we found out that the local bands we're making us go last at our second show of the day at 1:30 am, we called up our dude Evan Williams and told him to fill us. In our mouths and bellies. Oh yeah, in between those shows I went to a place I've been meaning to visit for over half a year: Pies n' Thighs.

This a joint that serves southern style food such as fried chicken, bbq, and of course, pies. I've had a couple of friends work here as well, and pretty much the only thing you hear about this place is that it'll blow your dick off(which B-rock claims is something I say?). Easily the most recommended item is the chicken buiscuit: a big fuck-off buttery buscuit with a piece of fried chicken smothered in honey butter and hot sauce. I had the "burnt end" baked beans as my side:

So if you read my description above than you must have already come to the conclusion that this sandwich is nothing less than... uhmm... dick blowing offingly good. Cuz yeah, it was! The only reason I'm at an impasse here is that you could really recreate this anywhere that sells fried chicken(although their chicken is naturally raised, which doesn't mean much to me if I'm eating fat-fuck food). If you go to KFC and order all the same components, you'll have a sandwich that's just as good for a fraction of the cost(I know Texas Pete when I taste it). If I decide I want a meal that's gonna make feel like I belong in fat person hell, I probably don't need to spend ten dollars on it. I also have to give a thumbs down on those beans, unfortunately -- dem shits was way too ketchupy for my taste. But you know what? I bet you the next time I play at Bruar Falls, I'll eat there again, cuz no where on earth will you find a place serving that kind of cuisine with a line around the block consisting of nothing but gorgeous hipsters with neat tattoos referencing their favorite child-hood books. Plus, I didn't try the fried pickles(reason enough to go back to a joint), and that sandwich was nothing short of delicious, so I'll be damned if I I'm gonna take the J train to the D, walk under the BQE, and take Scary Hooker Ave for two blocks just to save a couple of bucks.

Pies and Thighs is located in Brooklyn, NY at 166 S. 4th and Driggs, like a few train stops away from Union Pool, where one night I was trying to put the vibes out for some hot trim, but the only action I got was an ass-pinch from some dude.

Friday, April 29, 2011

I woke up at around 7:30 this morning on Howard's futon and started walking home and wondered, "why the hell do I give a shit about whether or not it's a bad idea to start blogging about local restaurants? If I feel like writing some shit, I should write some shit." I also asked, "Why the FUCK are one my socks completely soaked in some liquid with a smell I can't identify?" and "How the hell did I have the gumption to take off my cut-off jean shorts before I passed out on the futon?"

So I threw on some Sunny G's, put my shoes on(sans socks), and started walking my stupid ass back to my crib. There was a point when I was staring at my eyelids earlier, having realized that I was on Howard's futon and not my tempurpedic mattress, that I had a craving for a bakery/deli joint that's on the way from "mid-town"(the part of Charlottesville in between UVA and downtown that has a couple of restaurants and a handful of homeless dudes that want to borrow your cell phone) to Belmont(the Williamsburg of Charlottesville that has a bunch of assholes who want to borrow your smart phone): Penne Lane.

How in god's name is this place still in business!?!? It's off the beaten path, it has a shitty name, and they dumpster dive grocery store rotisserie chickens to make their chicken salad; which means, yes, their chicken salad is fucking delicious (maybe they don't dumpster dive them, they could just go to Kroger at 11pm and buy them for pocket change like a lot of other poor fuckers, but I'm pretty damn sure that chicken salad has the unmistakable flavor of grocery store rotisserie chicken, and I didn't see any chickens there rotisserrieing). This might be bull shit, but I heard somewhere that the owners are in some sort of witness protection thingy because of some Italian mob craziness and it's just a place for them to dump their boat-load of cash they got for snitching, but this is coming from a dude who first ate there because he was walking from the emergency room on the 5th of July after getting rufied.

Anyway, this place is family owned and operated -- the family consisting of the soft-spoken dad, the mom who seems to be self-medicating, and the son who can't figure out if he's black or not -- and they provide a very pleasant and inviting atmosphere. The three or four people who came in as I was masticating(HAHAHA ! I'll never get over that word) all knew the family by name and had their "usuals". I had the breakfast special, which is a breaky sandwich on freshly baked bread and a steaming hot coffee for a holy buttfucking shit $2.99. And yeah, so I had the same meal the day before for free because I stole my roomates' food, but the difference of the coffee being hot as fuck, the bread not being government brand, and having melted provolone instead of mayonnaise and hot sauce was wayyyyy worth it.

They get negative points for labeling themselves a gourmet deli and not having sparking water("the crispy version of wet" -Colaymon), but get bonus points because a really hot girl about to get on a train to New York stopped by and the me inside my head asked her to sit with me and grow old together. I also asked for a sausage egg and cheese, and got an egg and cheese, but didn't say anything because maybe self-medicating mom knew I shouldn't be such a fat ass all the time.

So yeah, I'm not sure how this place is still in business and I probably won't go out of my way to eat there, but I like it.

Penne Lane is located at 707 West Main Street in Charlottesville, Virginia, like half a mile from my crib, where a few months ago an air-flight attendant wearing a giant dream catcher and had a tongue ring made sex with me.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sorry it's taken so long to get on this action, but sxsw didn't really lend itself for enough free time to write one of these fuckers. The protocol was essentially this: wake up on a couch or floor, get some tacos, go play a show and watch a bunch of shows until two or three am, and make your way back to home base. Oh, and you're doing all of this whilst getting completely shit-dicked the entire time. You know the saying, "liquor before beer, have no fear. Beer after liquor, you're gonna get sicker"? Well I think the way sxsw was for me, it was more like, "sweet tea vodka before sparx, sparx, sparx, sweet tea vodka, tall boy lonestar, tall boy lonsestar, tall boy lonestar, 200ml Evan Williams, Red Stripe, Red Stripe, whoknowswhatelse, you're gonna be sitting on Satan's throne in Hell because he's off crying in an alley somewhere since you convinced his girlfriend to fuck you because you said you were in the Walkmen".

Well, kind of -- because although I did tell a girl I was in the Walkmen, I didn't get laid, and as far as I know, she wasn't dating Satan. We just ended up talking about how I was [not really] just on Yo Gabba Gabba and then I unexpectedly ran into her again the next night and drunkenly convinced myself she was really into me. Within that same twenty four hours I also drank whiskey with some of the Extraordinaires at a gay s&m bar that was pretty much a giant strobe light, and then weaseled our way into Emo's Jr. through the band entrance because I said we were playing in Owen Palette's backing band.

So when I wasn't being a big deceitful butt commando, I was eating some shit! The only free thing I got to take advantage of was these veggie chips, courtesy of Sensible Portions, and was served at all the Brooklyn Vegan parties:

Were they any good? Fucked if I know man, the table of free chips was set up directly next to the free Sparx table, where there were butter-face prostitutes pouring you as many of the free samples you wanted just so you might convince yourself to ever buy that shitty caffeine-less product ever again. I will say that the new 9.0% lemonade flavor tasted good after about four of them though, and the mid-drifts made up for the lack of caffeine. Oh yeah, the chips: crunchy, salty, and bland as And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's unfortunate set.

So the second best thing I ate in Austin was a "Texas-style" bratwurst that you could find being served at many street carts throughout the downtown area. I chose to eat at one particular Best of the Wurst cart, though, because it consistently had a longer line than any of the other carts I came across due to the fact that the dude slinging the sausages was a Yokozuna sized mother fucker who was marinating everything on the grill with his dripping slam pig sweat.

I asked for the most popular item, which was a brat all the way: sausage, grilled onions, sauerkraut, brown mustard, and curried ketchup(the most crucial of the condiments). It was a beautiful mess of flavors with enough fat content to sustain a Somalian village for a month. I think I'll go ahead and predict curried ketchup as being the next coolest thing for tattooed people to put everything on since Sriracha. That or ranch mixed with a bunch of Sriracha.

And finally, the best thing I ate in Texas was of course, booking agent and label people asshole TACOS! So one of the only major drawbacks to having a pretty much taco-only diet is that sometimes when you think you're going to drop a bus-load, you just end up having a 45 second long fart. But other than that, eating tacos all the time fucking rules. The best tacos I had in Texas was at El Chilito.

For breakfast, the taco that won it all was the Migas taco, which was egg, tortilla stips, tomato, onion, serrano, and cheese. That dark, diarrhea looking stuff on there is actually the house salsa, which I'm pretty sure is a burnt pepper puree of sorts.

Up there is the overall winner of the Texas Taco Olympics, the Chicken Tinga Puffy Taco. The tomato chipotle braised chicken was just fucking retarded, and deep frying the corn tortilla shell is realllly the only way corn tortillas should be eaten, am I right? I kind of think corn tortillas taste like shit, otherwise.

Brothers Tacos in Houston was a close second, and Tacos del Fuego in Austin(across from the cigarrette shop that has a god damned tip jar on the counter) shop can go fuck itself for being completely rude and over priced.

El Chilito is located 2219 Manor Drive in Austin, Texas, about three of four block away from the bridge I should jump off of for being such a shitty, shitty pig.

Monday, March 14, 2011

As soon as we crossed into Georgia, we stopped at a gas station for our hourly snack time, where we came across something that almost made me faint while simultaneously pitch a trouser tent:

This is not, I repeat, NOT photo shopped. Did it really take twenty years for Sun Chips to figure out that jalepeno cheddar jack is a much more natural flavor for a chip than fucking CINAMON!? This flavor also kicks the shit out of Garden Salsa, which is the flavor that has become the fourth horseman of the Sun Chip apocalypse; that, and those new biodegradable bags that are louder than a swarm of locusts.

Also - all of you Jews, Muslims, vegans, and vegetarians might want to reconsider your chip choice, because according to Wikipedia, some flavors of Sun Chips have pork enzymes in them! Crazy shit, right!?

Pictured above are the remnants of the boiled peanuts (aka “Goober Peas”) we got from the same gas station; remnants because I couldn’t photograph them in time before B-rock went all Operation Dumbo Drop on them.Boiled peanuts are a traditional southern snack, much like that of chitlins, kracklins, and cousins.Boiling peanuts usually takes at least four to seven hours, and are usually boiled in a bunch of salty shit, but in most of the southern gas stations I’ve encountered, “spicy Cajun style” is almost always an option, and actually the only flavor I've ever had.Did you know that boiling peanuts with the shells-in releases four times as much anti-oxidant power as opposed to roasting them or eating them raw?Neither did I, until I ate them, and then took a poop that was double fisting a bourbon and pbr, and had a lit cigarette in its poop mouth.

So we played a really bad ass farm to table fine dining restaurant in Athens that night, but unfortunately didn’t get to eat there because their mission statement doesn’t include helping touring musicians not be blinding beacons of filth. So instead, you get to read about Momma’s Boy!

There’s sort of an unspoken franchise of brunch places like this in just about every small college town in the country. It’s the type of place that serves all their beverages in mason jars, usually plays blue grass music, usually has a lot of vegetarian options, and there’s a fairly good chance you saw one or more of the hung-over wait staff at the show the night before. These places are pretty crucial to find on the road because they 1.) usually have a way for you to get out of there for $7, and 2.) are usually delicious. I went for today’s special: Pork chop with an egg over easy topped with raspberry hollandaise and served with cheese grits and a biscuit.

Now the description in itself is pretty drool worthy, right? So was it awesome? I mean, well, it wasn’t BAD or anything, but I guess maybe the best way to describe this dish is to compare it to the career of late 90’s alternative rock staple, Smash Mouth. Like the band, this dish had about four successful singles, but not necessarily any singles I actually gave a shit about or would care to revisit. Like the cheese grits: pretty good, but all they had to do was get the cheese on them while they were still piping hot so the cheese would actually melt! Much like Smash Mouth, who could’ve had more than a decade’s plus staying power had they not been such fat ugly people! Kudos for trying to mix it up with raspberry hollandaise, although it kind of fell flat, much like Smash Mouth’s cover of “I’m a Believer”. Anyway, a career, and a dish, that I will pay my respects to for their ambition, but will stick with the Pigeon Hole in Cville and listen to Beck.